December 9, 2009 - Greenbrae, CA  Cal Bass Champs in association with Dobyns Rods announced a new California State Championship tournament circuit. In addition to fishing for the title of California State Champion, anglers will fish for a first place prize of $20,000 and over $80,000 cash*. Entry fees for this event are $118 at the local stage and free at the regional and state championship events.
"This is an entirely new concept in bass fishing tournaments", stated Gary Dobyns the winningest angler in California 's history. "Creating a more reasonably priced tournament circuit not only enables more anglers to enter but gives anglers, that might not otherwise get the chance, to fish for big cash prizes.

The event is set up much like the U.S. Open golf tournament or how many poker tournaments are run. For $118 an angler can pick one of 16 local events to attempt to qualify for the regionals in that area. Each local event is limited to 50 entrants and the top 10 from each local event qualify for the regional tournament. There are 4 local events per region. The regionals are free to enter for all qualified entrants and will each have 40 anglers total. The top ten anglers from each regional win $1000 cash and a spot in the California State Championship.

The championship event will be held at Clear Lake for the initial year and will move around the state in subsequent years. There will be a total of 40 qualified anglers to fish the finals and the winner will receive $20,000 and the title of the first California State Champion. Second place will earn $10,000 and third place will earn $5000.
"Fishing for a title like 'California State Champion' alone is worth the $118 entry fee", stated Mike Tobey an accomplished Northern California angler. "Then throw in $20,000 to the winner and it makes you wonder why an event like this hasnt ever been done before. This is going to change the fishing tournament business in California ."

The California State Championships is a Pro only circuit, no amateurs, no team partners, just a pro angler one on one against the fish and ultimately against the other anglers. Polygraphs will be given to the anglers who make the State Championship finals to insure the integrity of the sport. "I'd like to think that there is very little cheating in the sport of fishing but, polygraphing all the finalists is a great way to keep the anglers honest", stated Tom Leogrande.

Each tournament will have its own sign up date and the spots at each event should go quickly. The sign ups are generally a month prior to the event. Entries are sent in through a web payment and are first come first serve. In order to allow anglers to attempt to qualify for the regionals more than once, the signups for each event will be the Saturday after the previous event in that region. "This allows for anglers who attempted to qualify and did not make the top 10 to sign up for the next event and have another chance to qualify", stated Gary Dobyns. Although, placing in the top 10 in any local event will qualify an angler for the regionals an angler is not limited to one attempt to qualify. In fact, an angler can attempt to qualify as many times as he/she wants. Once an angler is qualified they will not need nor be allowed to attempt to qualify again.

The road to becoming the State Champion is best described by Mike Tobey, "All you have to do is place top 10 on your local water out of 50 anglers. Then take top 10 out of the 40 qualified anglers in the regional, which should also be close to home for most of the anglers. You'll win $1000 for doing that and the ability to fish against the other qualified 39 anglers for an additional $35,000 and the State Champion title."

Register Now

In order to be able to post messages on the California Bass Fishing Forum forums, you must first register.
Please enter your desired user name, your email address and other required details in the form below.

User Name:

Password

Please enter a password for your user account. Note that passwords are case-sensitive.